Microfluidic pumping and dispensing of liquid chemical reagents is the subject of three U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,585,069; 5,593,838; and 5,603,351, all assigned to the David Sarnoff Research Center, Inc., and hereby incorporated by reference. The system uses an array of reservoirs, with connecting microchannels and reaction cells etched into a substrate. Electrokinetic pumps comprising electrically activated electrodes within the capillary microchannels provide the propulsive forces to move the liquid reagents within the system. The electrokinetic pump, which is also known as an electroosmotic pump, has been disclosed by Dasgupta et al., see "Electroosmosis: A Reliable Fluid Propulsion System for Flow Injection Analyses", Anal. Chem. 66, pp 1792-1798 (1994). The chemical reagent solutions are pumped from a reservoir, mixed in controlled amounts, and then pumped into a bottom array of reaction cells. The array may be decoupled from the assembly and removed for incubation or analysis.
The above described microfluidic pumping can be used as a printing device. The fluids pumped become ink solutions comprising colorants such as dyes or pigments. The array of reaction cells may be considered ink delivery chambers to be used for picture elements, or pixels, in a display, comprising mixtures of pigments having the hue of the pixel in the original scene. When contacted with paper, the capillary force of the paper fibers draws the dye from the cells and holds it in the paper, thus producing a paper print, similar to a photograph, of the original scene.
A difficulty associated with the above described microfluidic printing is the increased complexity in fabricating microfluidic pumps. Furthermore, the flow of the inks delivered to a receiver is desirably regulated as described in the above referenced U.S. patent applications Ser. No. 08/868,477, filed Jun. 3, 1997, entitled "Microfluidic Printing With Ink Flow Regulation" and Ser. No. 08/868,102, filed Jun. 3, 1997, entitled "Microfluidic Printing With Ink Volume Control." The ink flow regulation devices require additional steps and complexities in fabrication of the microfluidic printing apparatus.